Many modern industrial and/or commercial power applications utilize one or more batteries for supplying electrical power to one or more electrical loads, such as, but not limited to, electrical loads associated with vehicles. These power-demand scenarios often involve connecting the load to one or more batteries in any serial or parallel configuration. In many situations, power system implementation can be limited based on the voltage and capacity capabilities of standard, readily available batteries.
Standard available batteries, both disposable and rechargeable, are, generally, provided with an unconfigurable voltage and unconfigurable capacity. Therefore, such standard batteries may not match the power needs of a particular load, because the given, unconfigurable voltages and capacities of the standard batteries are incompatible with the voltage and/or capacity needs of the load. In some applications, customized batteries (e.g., customized lithium ion or lead acid batteries) are produced to satisfy a particular load; however, design and production of customized batteries can be cost prohibitive and customizable batteries often cannot have their voltage and/or capacity characteristics easily and quickly altered, if the power needs of the load change.
When performance degradation of a battery is detected, the battery is often replaced when the performance of the entire battery falls below acceptable levels. In some usage scenarios, replacement is not performed until the battery has failed, due to a lack of data regarding ongoing operating capacity and/or voltage of the battery. Lack of data regarding ongoing operating capacities of such batteries may not only lead to unwanted and surprising failure of the battery, but may alternatively lead to premature replacement of batteries.
Rather than using a single, standard available battery, some power systems, instead, utilize serial and/or parallel connections of an array of standard batteries, to meet the power demands of a load, if the load's demands deviate from the capabilities of standard available batteries. However, such connective arrays often do not provide an operator or user, associated with the load, information regarding capacity degradation of each of the batteries of the array. Such arrays may be particularly susceptible to failure, as they, typically, are limited by the capabilities of the lowest performing battery. The collective battery performance of the power system may degrade over time, at faster rates, when the batteries are not used optimally, because the operator and/or user associated with the load is unaware of ongoing performance characteristics of said batteries.
Standard available batteries are, typically, not refurbished, but, rather, are recycled for raw materials. To that end, such batteries are both unconfigurable, for providing power to different and/or changing power loads, and, thus, are rendered useless, to the user and/or operator associated with the load, upon failure. For ensuring life of a battery, for enabling customization of voltage and/or capacity output for a load, and/or for providing more affordable power solutions, power systems capable of utilizing replaceable battery submodules, to which standard available batteries may be replaceably connected, are desired.